Rush Limbaugh clearly does not think that anything really needs to change. If you want a Rolls Royce, you need to pay for it. If you can only afford a Corrolla, well that's what you will get. If you want to stay at the Ritz, you need to pay for the Ritz. If you can only afford Motel 6, so be it. So with healthcare, if you cannot afford the best coverage, well that's just tough. It will be good enough for what you can afford. After all there is universal access to the ER if you need assistance. However, this does not factor in the extent of ER overcrowding in which the current public use of ER services results. Clearly it is the best care in the world for some with pockets of cash fat enough to buy the best care, and must not be for those who have far less earnings power.
Mike Huckabee simply wants his doctor to make a lot of money in order that being a doctor will retain it's high standard of merit. That is to say, if costs and earnings are cut in healthcare, quality will decline since there will be less prestige associated with the medical profession. Of course this assumes that all doctors currently have the same earnings potential. It also seems to feed into the Limbaugh theory since some doctors earn more based on where they practice medicine. Clearly a plastic surgeon in New York City will make more money than an ER doctor in Pittsburgh. Although there is wisdom here. With the cost of getting an MD along with the costs associated with specializing and sub-specializing in one's practice, along with the overhead costs of malpractice and so forth, a doctor needs to have a substantially higher income to balance these high costs just to get the proper training. Thus, more systemic changes would have to take place if doctors earning power was to be decreased at all.
Neither of these positions suggest that healthcare needs to be reformed, even though some polls suggest that a majority of Americans believe something needs to change. This is not limited just to those who currently are not covered, but those who have coverage that is not supporting their medical care sufficiently enough.
Do you think healthcare needs to be reformed if not, why; if so, what is the best alternative to "obamacare"?
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Hi, Drew. I've been reading you off and on for a while, but I think this is the first–or nearly so–time I've commented. I've noted the deafening silence from the Right when asked for alternatives instead of braying opposition. I haven't even seen any real alternatives from the "libertarian" Koch crowd, which tells me perhaps they stand to gain either from the status quo or from Obamacare (which makes me question their libertarianism).
My general attitude is that big problems caused by massive government intervention and regulation 9such as the current economic crisis) can't be solved or even helped by further government intervention and regulation. It's that whole "one definition of insanity" thing.
Short answer: bleed the beast.
This is a multifaceted problem, with no pat or easy answers. Single-payer insurance only compounds the current systemic problems, and plays into the hands of the root cause of the high health care costs we have now: insurance companies.
Why do we all need comprehensive coverage? This is only a recent (relatively) phenomenon; healthcare, dental and vision coverage were added as benefits by employers as a dodge against high marginal income tax rates. It also (like state-mandated minimum car insurance) guaranteed insurance companies' profitability. As more and more employers added this benefit, coverage became more and more comprehensive. Now we have an almost entirely third-party paid system, where price and subjective value have no input to the market. Price is dictated by the insurers, who only care about profitability, not quality of care or any peripheral concerns. Doctors and hospitals accept the insurers' terms or face losing huge swaths of income by being deemed "out-of-network." All of this has come about due to a system design to strangle competition and reward *select* corporate favorites.
I can't speak to the conservative solution, but the (right-/anarcho-)libertarian solution is simple: eliminate comprehensive medical coverage (except for those who want to pay a premium for it–the Limbaughs, Huckabees, etc), [by] eliminate[ing] the income tax and return[ing] to hard [or at least mixed] currency (which will have the added benefit of reigning in the expansive global US empire-building *and* choking inflationary pressure on prices by limiting the govt's ability to continue all this break-neck deficit spending). Big steps, and painful ones, but simple ones.
America desperately needs reform. According to a UN index America ranks 37th in the world but pays most for that health care. A single-payer insurance system, even with private for-profit delivery of health care would result in significant cost savings. Because everyone is covered for everything there is much less red tape. No copays, deductible, applications. No one in an insurance office tells you which treatments are covered. No disqualifications for pre-existing conditions and no worries if you lose your job. Single payer is better because it is straightforward and more efficient. You would save about 20% right off the top by taking the bureaucracy out and profit taking out of insurance.
Your workforce will be healthier because your lower-working class people will be able to get health care. People will go for treatment before they get really sick because they have to think about whether they can afford it or not.
i think mixed currency is the only solution. i am with ron paul that we need to audit the fed and relinquish central control of money. as long as the fed dictates the flow of money, we will always be in debt, therefore we will never be able to afford health costs, and cost inflation will be an intractable problem.
the catch is that these big ass holding companies have bought the politicians who will write laws that favor the executive boards. before we have a chance to vote, the candidates have been selected by corporations who are the ones dictating the political flow to follow their money.
the free market was intended for small business to function as corporate guilds in a more or less democratic structure regulated by local currencies. so what politician will have the guts to stand up and say fuck all of them, let's start with the fed and work our way down to small business overwhelmed with debt. the healthcare issue is a symptom of a much larger systemic and structural abuse of the free market system. but the gop is not interested in a solution like that – the only way to get a small government to work for us again.
Yeah, I tend to agree… That's why pretty much all my political opinions tend to follow a scorched earth bent, and almost all my political outlooks are trending more and more to minarchist/anarchist. Bar Paul, I don't know of anyone on Capitol Hill who is capable of looking beyond his pet special interests and the next re-election campaign to actually do something beneficial for the average American.
Since so many people subscribe to the fallacy that government is a necessary component of society, however, I vigorously support the various secession movementsthat are popping up all over. (The "A" word tends to scare people) But I digress.
Yes, the problem is systemic, and the Fed appears to be the keystone (or lynch pin) to the whole thing. Remove it, the entire imperial structure collapses…. That's the "unintended consequence" I hope the "Audit" bills' statist co-sponsors have not wised up to. Short of competing currencies, however, the next best cure would be 100% reserve banking. As it turns out, the Fed is the vehicle; fractional reserves is the engine driving our inflationary economic grist-mill.
with ya. although paul needs to lean a little more socially lib for me. just finished reading doug rushkoff's book life, inc. reading that with brink lindsey's age of abundance makes our situation abundantly clear! the question is how to rip health care out of corporatism when costs are so sick and at the same time not funding a government takeover that will be just as costly as what we have. so there's an immediate concern and a long-term one. not sure anyone has addressed that yet.
that will be just as costly as what we have.
So you're an optimist…?
a very cautious optimist
hey maybe someday congress will be totally comprised of left and right libertarians. then some work can get done. more optimism?
honestly, I'd rather DC looked more like "logan's run," with all the imperial gods overgrown with ivy and their temples crumbling. but short of that, yes, real libertarians (as opposed to the LP) running the show under term limits would be preferable to the current bread and circuses.
The proposal by the Whole Food's CEO in a recent WSJ Op-ed doesn't seem like a bad alternative to me. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702...
The proposal by the Whole Food's CEO in a recent WSJ Op-ed doesn't seem like a bad alternative to me. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702...